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HOW TO PREPARE FOR A SITTING

IV

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nd most important of all is your internal preparation for the portrait work. As I've already said, mental equilibrium and tranquility are extremely important. Occasionally, I notice that the model literally has just extricated (well, almost extricated) himself from the maelstrom of his life's events and all types of troubles and agitation. In that case, I ask forgiveness and simply postpone the sitting, as awkward as that might be. What can you do? An inadequate internal state can seriously influence my work; indeed, mood swings are very easily transferred to the artist, who is naturally built to absorb the world around him. At that point the artist himself can, figuratively speaking, go off in a wrong direction, losing the thread and even beginning to spoil his own work. This is a very dramatic turn of events that doesn't happen often, but it does happen. In that case, the best thing to do, unnoticed by the portrait model, is to start again with a fresh posterboard.

o here are a few practical pieces of advice. A few days before the beginning of your joint work with the artist, take from the shelf a book by your favorite author. You probably haven't reread it in a long time. Here is a good opportunity to do so. The thing is, we "fall in love" with one or another writer or poet in a meaningful way and, because of that, we became acquainted with his work in some cherished moment of our life. And often this was a happy moment of our life. Returning to that moment automatically calls up that former mood and state of mind to the present. And even if we're speaking of far-away youth, my rule about that doesn't change, rather, it becomes even more relevant. Reading and rereading literature, brought back to you from that time, you yourself become younger and recall the time of your youth.

Galya

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